


Far from Home

by tollofthebells



Series: Ellinor Trevelyan [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Background Relationships, Deleted Scenes, Gen, Hints of Lyrium Withdrawal, King Alistair (Dragon Age), Light Angst, Love, Post-In Hushed Whispers, Reminiscing, Warden Cousland (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25177534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tollofthebells/pseuds/tollofthebells
Summary: When Leliana tells him his letter of apology after the events in Redcliffe was not enough, Alistair sets out for Skyhold to make amends with the Inquisitor in person. There, he finds that the trip does more good than just a strengthened alliance, and he sees reflections of his own life in the Inquisition.
Relationships: Alistair/Female Cousland (Dragon Age), Alistair/Female Warden (Dragon Age), Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan, Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford
Series: Ellinor Trevelyan [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1226219
Comments: 14
Kudos: 48





	Far from Home

**Author's Note:**

> this is literally just scrapped content from [a world alone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16370282). can be read as a standalone fic, but the longfic provides much more context on my inquisitor and her relationship with cullen.

Leliana is, all these years later, still too clever for him.

 _You should come apologize_ , she’d admonished him in a letter he reads alone in the throne room, slouching as Fletcher scratches his ears with his hind leg in the seat his wife should be in. _Ellinor was quite unhappy with the way the Inquisition was treated in Redcliffe_.

He’d said he was sorry already—all in a letter, sent along with possibly every Fereldan Forder his stables could spare. As a _gift_ , because _nothing says ‘I’m sorry I was an arse that one time’ like a herd of horses, right?_ he’d figured. _For Andraste’s sake, the Trevelyan_ crest _is a horse, it should be apology enough_. But though the Inquisition doesn’t scare him ( _yet_ , anyway), its spymaster certainly does. So he supposes it’s worth a trip, and besides, he has a growing stack of letters for Leliana to send to Emilia on his behalf. Because she knows where she is, _unlike me_. So he dons his traveling clothes (they’re a little tighter around than thighs than he remembers but _at least they’re not itchy_ the way the stiff burgundy regalia that he wears in court are), collects his pack and his sword and his shield (as though he’s likely to run into any darkspawn between Denerim and the Frostbacks but _Em would never let me forget it if I let some pitiful South Reach genlock get the best of me_ ), and rounds up Fletcher, who leaps and prances around the palace until the moment they leave in spite of the stiffness Alistair knows the old dog feels in his hips.

“We’re not going off to find Emilia, you know,” Alistair mutters, and the mabari’s enthusiasm ceases so abruptly that for a moment he thinks he might return to the palace altogether.

But he doesn’t. So they keep going.

They’ve learned to keep going without her, together, _for now_.

With the repeated assurances that _no, I don’t need an armed escort_ , they’re off. He hasn’t crossed the country in years (about ten, if he remembers correctly— _Em would know for sure_ ) but the last time he did, it was with her. It’s quieter this time, except for Fletcher’s whining, because the dog _knows_ he’ll stop to give him some jerky if he cries long enough, and he’ll hate to let Emilia see that he’s let her mabari get fat while she’s been away but _if she didn’t want this to happen, she could’ve taken him with her_ , he reasons. Instead, she left the poor thing behind for Alistair to look after.

If he’s being honest with himself, though, he knows it’s more the other way around.

They make the trip in good time, all things considered. He hasn’t been up in the Frostbacks since the Blight, and he hasn’t been to the Inquisition’s keep— _Skyhold_ , it’s called—at all, but a squad of scouts meet him halfway up the mountain and show him the way.

“Leliana must be waiting for me,” he grins when they meet him.

They don’t say much in return. When they reach the vast stone keep at the top, his old friend is waiting for him, and he tells her so.

“Loved the welcome party,” he greets her in lieu of a _hello, how are you?_ The courtyard of the keep isn’t quite as busy has he thought it might be, but the skies above warn of rain, and _it’s almost lunchtime too_. “Friendly bunch you’ve got here.”

“No one is here to offer you any fanfare, Alistair,” she replies, embracing him with both arms before whispering in his ear. “You just needed to get out of that palace for a while. You are driving yourself miserable.”

And suddenly, it clicks. He’s not here to make a second apology to the Inquisitor at all. _She’s still too clever for me_ , he realizes, pulling back and looking into Leliana’s eyes. _Her dumb, blue, very smug eyes_. He just won’t admit it out loud. “Well, I—”

“Fletcher!” Leliana coos in a voice he knew previously to be reserved only for her nugs. She crouches down to the mabari’s level, scratching the graying fur around his jowls.

He licks her promptly on the face.

“I—” Alistair starts again, but he’s interrupted a second time by a door opening on the side of the keep, hushed voices, and when he looks up, he finds two distantly familiar figures huddled in close whispers, hand in hand.

Fletcher whines, and instantly, the couple springs apart.

“That would be Ellinor,” Leliana notes, straightening, “and Cullen.”

The pair begin to approach, and _we’ve only just arrived_ Alistair thinks, tapping the toes of his boots on the courtyard patio one at a time to kick off the mud, _but then again I_ did _come to make amends with the Inquisitor, so there’s no time like the present_. As the two near, he looks at them more closely. The Inquisitor— _Ellinor_ —he’s seen more recently, at Teagan’s estate, _and she looks just as reserved as she had then, too_ , he notes.

For Cullen Rutherford, it’s been far longer, and then Alistair had only been a junior warden, and Emilia had been there too, and it was brief and painful enough that he could scarcely recall much from their meeting—only that he knew at once he could never wish such a fate on anyone. The man looks more or less the same as Alistair thinks he had then, although without the clunky templar armor he himself had always detested, and with a few more years evident in his face, _but then, haven’t we all aged?_

Leliana flashes a cool smile. “Ellinor. Cullen. You remember King Alistair of Ferelden, no?”

“I do,” Ellinor replies, flinching a bit when Fletcher runs to the two of them excitedly, “although I don’t—” She grimaces. “—Cullen—”

Alistair raises his eyebrows, watching Cullen step between her and the dog as Fletcher circles and sniffs them, tail wagging so frantically that his entire rear shakes. “Oh, he’s not—he doesn’t _bite_ , don’t worry!” he clarifies. “Well, he does bite. If I tell him to. Or at least, _sometimes_ when I tell him to, because he doesn’t listen to me as much as he listens to Em—my wife, that is, but—”

“Fletcher, come!” Leliana snaps, and immediately, the mabari heels.

 _Traitor_ , Alistair thinks sourly, and Leliana gives him a tight-lipped smile.

“Ellinor is afraid of dogs.”

“I’m not _afraid_ , Leliana,” the Inquisitor argues, reddening, and Cullen clears his throat.

“Not _all_ dogs,” he says quickly, still standing before her protectively even with Fletcher now lying at Leliana’s feet. “Just mabari. She’s—she’s just had bad experiences with them before. That’s all.”

“Thank you, Cullen.” The Inquisitor crosses her arms, still red in the face but setting her jaw straight and her shoulders back.

It reminds him, _just a little_ , of Emilia.

“I just didn’t know you were bringing a mabari,” she says, eyes lingering on Fletcher before moving to Leliana. “Actually, I didn’t know we were expecting you at all. Your Highness.” Where Cullen had once stood protectively before her, now her own fingers brush carefully over his—a quick touch, one he might not even notice except _Em does that sometimes, at court_.

“I just...thought I’d drop in as a surprise!” Alistair says, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “And you’re both very surprised. So I suppose it worked.” He grins. “Uh...surprise!”

Fletcher _sighs_ , breaking the awkward silence hanging over the group.

“Alistair is here on my invitation,” Leliana says finally. “With the Inquisition’s alliance with Ferelden so recently secured, I thought it might be good for him to visit and learn a little more of our operations here, with appropriate discretion given. Of course, you already know each other from—”

“Yes, we’ve met!” he says. _If at first you don’t succeed_... “Both of you. You, in Redcliffe…” he trails off, nodding at the Inquisitor.

She won’t even muster a fake smile, and his own flickers in return.

“And Cullen—”

“Yes,” the commander replies, nodding.

The Inquisitor looks at him and does it _again_ , the little nudge of her fingers except this time she squeezes his hand, once, before letting go, and Cullen clears his throat.

“At Kinloch. I haven’t forgotten.”

“And neither have I,” Alistair says, puzzled at the way the Inquisitor stands ever closer to Cullen now, nearly in _front_ of him, like she’s trying to shield him from mere conversation.

The commander squeezes his eyes shut.

 _Oh_. Of course. _I imagine he’d rather forget_. “Well, I—”

“I have to get back to my reports,” Cullen says, a little shakily. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“Of course.”

“It is good to see you,” he adds, stepping away from the Inquisitor, though her gaze lingers on him.

“And you as well. Time has been good to you, my friend,” Alistair says kindly, clapping him on the arm once because that’s what men _do_ , or at least it’s what Oghren does to him every time he sees him, and Maker knows he has few friends in Denerim he’s had a chance to try it out on.

Cullen smiles weakly in return and the Inquisitor doesn’t smile at all, only clenching her jaw like what he’d said is a lie, like she knows something he doesn’t.

Alistair frowns. It was only a compliment. It’s what you say when you haven’t seen someone in many years, _even if the last time you saw that someone you were hardly in a place to call him a friend and he was hardly in a place to call you anything at all._

“Thank you,” Cullen coughs finally, sharing a look with the Inquisitor. “Ellinor, I’ll see you—”

“—later,” she finishes softly.

With one last brush of their fingers ( _Em does that to me but not_ nearly _as often, Maker’s breath_ ) he departs, off to the towering ramparts surrounding the courtyard and leading to Maker knows where.

“I have work to do as well,” Leliana declares, kneeling down once more to scratch Fletcher between the ears. “Ellinor, if you could be so kind as to show Alistair to the guest wing. I believe Josephine would appreciate it.”

“And _I_ believe Josephine isn’t aware we have a guest,” she mutters.

Alistair frowns.

“But of course,” the Inquisitor adds, with a small smile this time even though Alistair can see through it.

He can’t be very upset. Em would be the same way with unannounced visits from nobility. _Or worse_.

“This way,” she says, nodding at Leliana as the spymaster departs. She starts toward the keep, toward the very door she and Cullen had come out of, actually.

He whistles once for Fletcher. “Come on, boy.”

The Inquisitor freezes.

 _Right._ “I can have him wait out here for now,” he says quickly. “He won’t mind.”

Fletcher whines.

“You will _not_ be lonely!” Alistair argues through gritted teeth while the Inquisitor shifts from foot to foot. “I’ll come back for you later, but she doesn’t like you.”

“No, it’s—”

“It’s okay, I understand! He can be scary sometimes. You know how they say dogs are all like their owners? His owner is my wife.”

The Inquisitor frowns, crossing her arms. “He doesn’t...have to stay outside, though,” she says stiffly. “If he’s going to be lonely. Cullen loves mabari, he wouldn’t say so before but he adores them, I’m sure he’d be happy to—”

“Really?” Alistair asks, brightening. “Did you hear that, bud?”

Fletcher barks.

“Go after him, then.”

He scampers off, up the same stone steps Cullen had climbed to the battlements.

_And then there were two._

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate it,” the Inquisitor says quietly, opening the door to the keep.

He follows her inside. “Yeah. I know I said he wouldn’t get lonely outside, but...”

“I meant Cullen.”

_Ah._

“He...isn’t feeling well today,” she says, leading him down a long hallway. “So I apologize for being short with you, initially. We weren’t expecting company. It’s not your fault, though, it’s…”

“Leliana’s,” they say simultaneously.

She nods.

“She didn’t tell me that she wasn’t going to tell you, if it makes a difference,” he offers, but she just shrugs. “She invited me to—well, actually, I came because I suppose I owe you more of an apology. After what happened in Redcliffe.”

They stop in front of a room—vast, mostly empty, neat and clean and probably not unlike the rooms in the guest wing of their palace in Denerim, although he’d seldom been there himself.

“You’ve already sent just about every Forder in the country.”

“Even so,” he grins, dropping his pack on the floor. “Hey, where _is_ Skyhold, exactly? In the grand scheme of the Frostbacks? We are in Ferelden, still, right?” _Emilia would know_.

“Ferelden has staked their claim in it, yes.”

“So the Inquisition _is_ headquartered in Fereldan lands, then,” he muses.

“Yes, Your Highness,” the Inquisitor agrees, crossing her arms.

He can almost _feel_ the bite in her tone, her brief moment of vulnerability (and _perhaps “vulnerability” is a generous word for it_ ) has come to an end. _She’s a fiery one_ , he thinks. _Just like Emilia_.

“But you may do well to remember that the Inquisition is not Fereldan. And _I’m_ not a Fereldan.”

He grins. “Maybe not. But you lie with one.”

She opens her mouth in shock, but no witty retort comes. _So it’s true_. He could see it. He’s a married man, after all, with far more experience in the lovers department than Cullen Rutherford and his Inquisitor.

“Well—Cullen’s _Fereldan_ , but he’s not like...” Her cheeks grow red. “I mean, he spent several years in the Free Marches, so—”

“My lady,” Alistair laughs— _giggles_ , if he’s being honest—“he’s as Fereldan as they come. The man saw Fletcher in the courtyard and I thought he might cry.”

“Well he—yes. Regardless, the Inquisition itself isn’t—”

“All right, all right. I suppose I won’t try and seize the land,” he jokes.

She doesn’t laugh, and he scuffs his boots awkwardly over the stone floor.

“You remind me of my wife, you know.”

“The Hero of Ferelden?” she asks, her eyes brightening for the first time since he’d _arrived_.

“Yeah,” he says soberly. “Scary, and cold.”

For once— _for once_ —she laughs. “Leliana’s told me that, before, in so many words. She...she sounds like an exceptional woman.”

His smile flickers for a moment, and he sinks down onto the bed across from where she stands. “She is.”

“But she’s not with you now.”

“Not right now, no,” he says, faltering. “But—but we _were_ together. And we will be again. That I’m sure of,” because _I have to be, or else I don’t know what I’ll do_. He shakes his head. “We were young when we met, you know,” he says. It’s rambling but _I don’t care_. “Young when we fell in love. Young when we married.” He smiles bitterly. “Although I suppose ‘young’ is the new ‘middle-aged’ if you’re a Grey Warden.”

“How did you manage?” the Inquisitor asks. “In a time like…”

“In a time like this?” He sighs wistfully. _It_ is _similar,_ he thinks. _The end of the world, again._ “ Well, Wynne—she was one of our good friends at the time—she thought it was a passing infatuation. Puppy love, only a crush. I suppose everyone must have. We tried keeping it between the two of us, but everyone knew. I don’t think anyone thought it was a good idea, either. But we proved them wrong.” He smiles. “If there’s anything Em and I are good at, it’s proving people wrong.”

She gives him a thoughtful smile. A sad smile. _I know that well_. “That’s good,” she says, distantly. “I’ll—I should leave you to settle in now. If you’d like to meet us in the main hall when you’re ready, I’m sure Josephine would be happy to show you the rest of the keep.”

“Right,” he says, slipping back into cheery defenses as always. “Looking forward to it already!”

When she leaves, it’s just him. Even Fletcher is still out, somewhere with Cullen, and though he misses the dog—a steady presence and reminder of Emilia, though he rarely admits it to himself—he’s glad for him to have found a fellow countryman to spend time with. And the time alone allows him a moment of peace—one he takes quick advantage of, kicking off his traveling boots before retrieving a sheet of parchment from his pack, along with a pen.

 _My dear Em_ , he begins to write. _Arrived in Skyhold today. The infamous Inquisitor is a fiery one. I’m not sure if you’d be sworn enemies or the best of friends… But she is good, and I have full faith in her and the group that she leads…”_

**Author's Note:**

> god ellinor's gonna sound like such a bitch if you don't know her already oh welllllll


End file.
